On this day: July 21

2011: NASA's Space Shuttle program ends with the morning landing of the space shuttle Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to wrap up mission STS-135. The nearly 13-day mission, which delivered components to the international space station, was the 135th mission flown by the space shuttle program.

2007: The seventh and last book of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," is released globally in 93 countries. The book broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever, a record it still holds today. It sold 15 million copies in its first 24 hours, including more than 11 million in the United States and United Kingdom alone, beating the previous record set by Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which had sold nine million copies on its first day in 2005.

2002: WorldCom Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time it was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

1998: Alan Shepard, the naval aviator and NASA astronaut who in 1961 became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space, dies of leukemia at age 74 in Pebble Beach, California. Shepard made his historic flight into space as part of Project Mercury and returned to space a decade later, commanding the Apollo 14 mission and becoming the fifth person to walk on the moon. After leaving NASA, the New Hampshire native became a successful businessman.

1990: Roger Waters stages a production of "The Wall" on the vacant terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall the year before. Among the artists who took part in the charity concert were Sinead O'Connor, Bryan Adams, Phil Collins and Cyndi Lauper.

1987: Guns N' Roses' debut album "Appetite for Destruction" is released. The album was a critical and financial success, eventually topping the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. It featured songs such as "It's So Easy," "Mr. Brownstone," "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Paradise City."

1983: The world's lowest temperature is recorded at Vostok Station in Antarctica at -128.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This beat the station's former record of -126.9 degrees set on Aug. 24, 1960.

1980: AC/DC releases the album "Back in Black," their first with Brian Johnson as lead singer following the Feb. 19, 1980, death of original lead singer Bon Scott. The album, dedicated to Scott's memory, reached No. 1 on the UK charts and No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart and has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.

1978: Actor Josh Hartnett, best known for movies such as "Halloween H20," "The Faculty," "Pearl Harbor," "Black Hawk Down" and "30 Days of Night," is born in St. Paul, Minnesota.

1973: Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves connects with Ken Brett's fastball for his 700th career home run, becoming only the second major-leaguer, after Babe Ruth, to reach the milestone. Aaron would eventually surpass Ruth's career mark of 714 and hold the record of 755 home runs until surpassed by Barry Bonds in 2007.

1969: Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin blast off from the moon after spending more than 21 hours on the lunar surface and return to the command module piloted by Michael Collins. Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, spent about two and a half hours outside the spacecraft while Aldrin spending slightly less. The three-man crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean three days later.

1968: Soccer player Brandi Chastain, best known for her game-winning penalty shootout kick against China in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup final and her celebration afterward, is born in San Jose, California. Chastain has won two Women's World Cup championships, two Olympic gold medals and an Olympic silver medal, and has played professionally for three different franchises in her home state of California.

1967: Hall of Fame baseball player Jimmie Foxx, the second player in Major League Baseball history to hit 500 career home runs, a three-time MVP, and a triple crown winner in 1933, dies at age 59 after choking on a piece of food while dining out with his brother in Miami, Florida. Foxx played most of his career with the Philadelphia Athletics and Boston Red Sox, but also played for the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.

1961: Gus Grissom becomes the second American to go into space, piloting the second Project Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 4, popularly known as Liberty Bell 7. Grissom's suborbital flight lasted 15 minutes and 37 seconds, reached an altitude of more than 102.8 nautical miles and traveled 262.5 nautical miles downrange, landing in the Atlantic Ocean.

1959: Elijah "Pumpsie" Green becomes the first black player to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last pre-expansion major-league team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

1957: Althea Gibson becomes the first black woman to win a major U.S. tennis title by winning the Women’s National clay-court singles competition. Two weeks before her victory, Gibson had won her first Wimbledon singles championship, and she would go on to win the U.S. Open title in New York, when the competition still was for top-ranked amateurs, later that summer.

1954: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam as a result of the First Indochina War. The division was not intended to be permanent, but rather the countries were intended to be reunited following elections in 1956. However, reunification didn't take place until after the surrender of the South Vietnamese government following the Vietnam War.

1951: Actor and comedian Robin Williams is born in Chicago, Illinois. Williams rose to fame on the sitcom "Mork & Mindy" and went on to a movie career that includes films such as "Good Morning, Vietnam," "Dead Poets Society," "Awakenings," "The Fisher King," "Aladdin," "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Good Will Hunting." He earned four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his role in "Good Will Hunting." He also received two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and five Grammy Awards over his career. The comedian, who had struggled with addiction and depression over his life, committed suicide at age 63 on Aug. 11, 2014.

1948: Yusuf Islam, the singer-songwriter formerly known as Cat Stevens, is born Steven Demetre Georgiou in London, England. He is best known for songs such as "The First Cut Is the Deepest," "Father and Son," "Wild World," "Peace Train," "Moonshadow" and "Morning Has Broken" and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.

1948: Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, the creator of the comic strip "Doonesbury," is born in New York City.

1944: German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators are executed by firing squad in Berlin, Germany, for the July 20 bombing plot that failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Although the blast killed four people, Hitler was shielded from the blast by a heavy, solid-oak conference table and was only slightly injured.

1938: Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general, is born in Miami, Florida. Reno served during the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001.

1930: The Veterans Administration of the United States is established. The department would later become known as the Department of Veterans Affairs and gained cabinet-level status in 1989.

1926: Filmmaker Norman Jewison, best known directing the Oscar-nominated films "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming," "In the Heat of the Night," "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Moonstruck," is born in Toronto, Ontario. He earned seven Academy Award nominations in his career, including Best Director nominations for "Moonstruck," "Fiddler on the Roof" and "In the Heat of the Night." He's also known for directing movies such as "The Cincinnati Kid," "The Thomas Crown Affair," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "A Soldier's Story" and "The Hurricane."

1925: English racing motorist and motoring journalist Malcolm Campbell becomes the first man to break the 150-mph barrier at Pendine Sands in Wales. He drove a 350-horsepower V12 Sunbeam at a two-way average speed of 150.33 mph. The feat came on the 21st anniversary of Louis Rigolly breaking the 100-mile-per-hour barrier on land. Campbell would break a total of nine land speed records between 1924 and 1935.

1925: In what is commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, teacher John Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school and is fined $100 and costs. The verdict was later overturned on a technicality.

1904: French driver Louis Rigolly becomes the first man to break the 100-mile-per-hour barrier on land, driving a Gobron-Brillié racing car on a beach in Ostend, Belgium.

1899: Ernest Hemingway, the author and Nobel Prize laureate known for books such as "A Farewell to Arms," "The Sun Also Rises," "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea," is born in Oak Park, Illinois. Hemingway, considered one of the classic authors of American literature and known for his economical and understated style and his life of adventure, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at age 61 on July 2, 1961.

1873: Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang pull off their first train robbery, derailing a locomotive of the Rock Island Railroad near Adair, Iowa. The train's engineer, John Rafferty, was killed in the crash. The gang took more than $2,000 (the equivalent of about $40,000 in today's dollars) from the express safe in the baggage car. Here, brothers Jesse and Frank James are seen in 1872.

1865: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what was one of the few recorded instances in the Old West of a one-on-one pistol quick-draw duel in a public place. The two were originally friends who had a falling out and ultimately ended up dueling over a disputed gambling debt. Hickok was eventually acquitted of manslaughter. The first story of the shootout was detailed in an article in Harper's Magazine in 1867, making Hickok a household name and folk hero.

1861: The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the war begins and ends in a victory for the Confederate army near Manassas Junction, Virginia. The battle began as a surprise attack by Union forces led by Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, but the attack proved ineffective because of poor execution. Although initially at a disadvantage, Confederate forces were able to secure reinforcements via railroad and turn the tide of the battle. Thomas J. Jackson, then a little known brigadier general, earned his famous nickname of "Stonewall Jackson" when his brigade of Virginians stood their ground, allowing a Confederate counterattack that left Union troops routed and retreating.